OUR PRINCIPLES & CODE OF CONDUCT
Zebras Unite is a cooperative--an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned and democratically-controlled enterprise.
We adhere to the values shared by cooperatives around the world: self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity, and solidarity. In the tradition of their founders, cooperative members believe in the ethical values of honesty, openness, social responsibility and caring for others.
Zebras Unite follows the seven guiding principles of cooperatives to pursue our vision and mission:
1. Voluntary and Open Membership: Cooperatives are voluntary organisations, open to all persons able to use their services and willing to accept the responsibilities of membership, without gender, social, racial, political or religious discrimination.
2. Democratic Member Control: Cooperatives are democratic organisations controlled by their members, who actively participate in setting their policies and making decisions. Men and women serving as elected representatives are accountable to the membership. In primary cooperatives members have equal voting rights (one member, one vote) and cooperatives at other levels are also organised in a democratic manner.
3. Member Economic Participation: Members contribute equitably to and democratically control, the capital of their cooperative. At least part of that capital is usually the common property of the cooperative. Members usually receive limited compensation, if any, on capital subscribed as a condition of membership. Members allocate surpluses for any or all of the following purposes: developing their cooperative, possibly by setting up reserves, part of which at least would be indivisible; benefiting members in proportion to their transactions with the cooperative; and supporting other activities approved by the membership.
4. Autonomy and Independence: Cooperatives are autonomous, self-help organisations controlled by their members. If they enter into agreements with other organisations, including governments, or raise capital from external sources, they do so on terms that ensure democratic control by their members and maintain their cooperative autonomy.
5. Education, Training, and Information: Cooperatives provide education and training for their members, elected representatives, managers, and employees so they can contribute effectively to the development of their co-operatives. They inform the general public - particularly young people and opinion leaders - about the nature and benefits of co-operation.
6. Cooperation among Cooperatives: Cooperatives serve their members most effectively and strengthen the cooperative movement by working together through local, national, regional and international structures.
7. Concern for Community: Cooperatives work for the sustainable development of their communities through policies approved by their members.
In observance of these principles, the board of Zebras Unite has adopted the following Code of Conduct:
Zebras Unite is dedicated to providing a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, neurodiversity, body size, age, race, or religion. We do not tolerate harassment of participants in our events, online forums, chapters, and other activities in any form and our Inclusion team ([email protected]) closely monitors and responds to all reports and/or feedback.
This code of conduct applies to all Zebras Unite endeavors, including but not limited to our events, online and offline presence, leadership team, and the broader Zebra community. Anyone who violates this code of conduct may be sanctioned or expelled from any of these spaces at the discretion of the Inclusion team.
Some Zebras Unite spaces may have additional rules in place, which will be made clearly available to participants. All participants are responsible for knowing and abiding by these rules.
HARASSMENT IS:
Offensive comments related to gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, mental illness, neuro(a)typicality, physical appearance, body size, age, race, or religion - both online and in person.
Unwelcome comments regarding a person’s lifestyle choices and practices, including those related to food, health, parenting, drugs, and employment.
Deliberate misgendering or use of ‘dead’ or rejected names.
Gratuitous or off-topic sexual images or behaviour in spaces where they’re not appropriate.
Physical contact and simulated physical contact (eg, textual descriptions like “*hug*” or “*backrub*”) without consent or after a request to stop.
Threats of violence.
Incitement of violence towards any individual, including encouraging a person to commit suicide or to engage in self-harm.
Deliberate intimidation.
Stalking or following.
Nonconsensual photography or recording, including logging online activity for harassment purposes.
Sustained disruption of discussion.
Unwelcome sexual attention.
Pattern of inappropriate social contact, such as requesting/assuming inappropriate levels of intimacy with others
Continued one-on-one communication after requests to cease.
Deliberate “outing” of any aspect of a person’s identity without their consent except as necessary to protect vulnerable people from intentional abuse.
Publication of non-harassing private communication.
Zebras Unite prioritizes marginalized people’s safety over privileged people’s comfort. The Inclusion team reserves the right not to act on complaints regarding:
‘Reverse’ -isms, including ‘reverse racism,’ ‘reverse sexism,’ and ‘cisphobia’
Reasonable communication of boundaries, such as “leave me alone,” “go away,” or “I’m not discussing this with you.”
Communicating in a ‘tone’ you don’t find congenial
Criticizing racist, sexist, cissexist, or otherwise oppressive behavior or assumptions
REPORTING & ENFORCEMENT
If you are being harassed, notice that someone else is being harassed, or have any other concerns, please contact the Inclusion team [email protected]. Your experience and account is valid.
If the person who is harassing you is on the team, they will recuse themselves from handling your incident. We will respond as promptly as we can.
COMMUNITY CONDUCT
This code of conduct applies to all Zebras Unite endeavors, but if you are being harassed by a member outside of but related to any of our spaces, we still want to know about it. We will take all good-faith reports of harassment seriously, especially by any member of a leadership team. This includes harassment outside our spaces and harassment that took place at any point in time. The Inclusion Team reserves the right to exclude people from all Zebras Unite endeavors based on their past behavior, including behavior outside of and towards people who are not active members of Zebras Unite.
In order to protect volunteers from abuse and burnout, we reserve the right to reject any report we believe to have been made in bad faith. Reports intended to silence legitimate criticism may be deleted without response.
We will respect confidentiality requests for the purpose of protecting victims of abuse. At our discretion, we may publicly name a person about whom we’ve received harassment complaints, or privately warn third parties about them, if we believe that doing so will increase the safety of Zebras Unite members or the general public. We will not name harassment victims without their affirmative consent.
CONSEQUENCES
Participants who are asked to stop any harassing behavior are expected to comply immediately.
If a participant engages in harassing behavior, the Inclusion Team may take any action they deem appropriate, up to and including expulsion from all Zebras Unite endeavors and identification of the participant as a harasser to other Zebras or the general public.
ON FRIENDLY, INTELLECTUAL ENVIRONMENTS
A little different than our code of conduct though equally important, we encourage everyone to visit The Recurse Center’s Social Rules policy and consider the implications of “subtle-isms.” Not sure about some of the terminology we reference here? That’s ok, you are probably not alone, and this article on inclusive language by Courtney Seiter at Buffer will support our collective education and progress.
If you have questions, comments, desire further resources, or would like to have an open conversation about any of this content, please do not hesitate to reach out to our inclusion team: [email protected].
THANK YOU
We’d like to thank a few wonderful organizations and individuals for open sourcing inclusion materials, without which our code of conduct would not exist. Thank you so much: